Traditionally, cloud computing is the practice of using a network of servers that are hosted remotely to store, manage, and process data in place of using a local server or computing device. Cloud computing has provided a model for enabling network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. Together with storage solutions, cloud computing has provided users with various capabilities to store, manage, and process their data using third-party data centers. Cloud computing utilizes the sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale.
Mobile devices are often constrained by resources, such as processing power, battery life, and available storage space. The constraints on these resources may limit mobile devices from delivering the range of rich mobile experiences that users may desire. Despite the arrival of new technologies to improve processing power, battery life, and storage space on mobile devices, the growing sophistication and requirements of mobile applications push against the limits of the resources.
Mobile cloud computing uses a combination of cloud computing, mobile computing, and wireless networks to bring additional computational resources to mobile users. Mobile cloud computing may leverage elastic resources of varied clouds and network technologies toward increased functionality, storage, and mobility to serve a multitude of mobile devices anywhere and anytime regardless of heterogeneous environments and platforms.